


Names

by TheMikeWheelers (jasongracefully)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 09:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8366437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasongracefully/pseuds/TheMikeWheelers
Summary: All the names El had in her life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Short thing I wrote bc I'm bored (and tryna take my mind off that Walking Dead premiere smh) so I hope you enjoy!

Jane Ives 

It was the name she never got. The name that was stolen from her. The name that bad men took from her and replaced with years of pain. 

El didn't find out until years later this was what her name should be. She was 13 years old and Joyce wanted to tell her everything about her history. 

She never thought much of the past before that. All her memories were of the lab, she didn't think of a time before she could remember. 

But then Joyce launched into the story. How she had a mother, Terry Ives, who wasn't well anymore. Who gave birth to a girl named Jane who was kidnapped by evil scientists. 

The story seemed like a fantasy to El, she couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that this was her life. This was her story and she didn't even know it. She had a mother out there and she was taken by bad men as a baby. 

Joyce wanted to know if she wanted to be called Jane.

El thought about it, but it wasn't right. Jane Ives was the daughter of Terry, she grew up outside of Hawkins with a loving mother and aunt. She grew up like most girls her age and never had a care in the world. 

Jane Ives wasn't real. She was just a possibility, an alternate reality. She didn't exist and dreaming of her wouldn't bring her to life. 

Her name was Eleven. She was taken by bad men and she had superpowers and she was a lab experiment for most of her life. She had endured more pain than any child her age. But she had survived all that. She was strong and brave and she didn't let any of that ruin her. 

Jane and Eleven weren't the same person, and El was proud of who she was. 

So the matter was dropped. She didn't want to be called Jane. She never was Jane, maybe in a different universe that could have been her, but in this life Jane was nonexistent and El wasn't about to pretend she was there. 

Jane was the name that El never had, and Jane was the person El never became. 

 

011

For twelve years this was her name. It wasn't even a name, it was a number. It was an experiment, not a human being. 

El had spent so long being just 011, being called that by bad men. It had turned into so much pain, never having a real name. 

Every day she was reminded that she was just an experiment to some scientists who she didn't realize how badly they treated her. 

Years later El would look back and see how naive she was. She didn't see the problem with what they did. They hurt her so much, but she didn't even know what hurting was. She didn't know they were treating her any less than a human, because at the time she didn't know she was a human, she was just 011.

That number was her label for so long, but it wasn't a name. It was what bad men used to organize their experiments. 

Her name made her angry. She had spent twelve years of her life with that name, with that pain associated with it. 

But that was the first name she knew, it was what she was always called. She was 011. She was raised in a lab and made an experiment for years. Being 011 was what made her who she was. 

The pain of her name would always be carried with her, but it was who she was. 

 

El 

This was the first name that meant something to her. It was a quick given name, without much thought. Just a short, “El. Short for Eleven,” thrown out in Mike Wheeler’s basement on a cold November night. 

But the name was everything to her.

It was her first step away from being 011. It was the first time she had a real name. It was the first time someone called her something that showed that she was more than a lab rat. 

El was a human being, she had a real name and she wasn't just a number. She was given a quick, short nickname, but it was who she was. 

Soon enough everyone called her El. Eleven was a forgotten name, it was a part of her past. El was her present and her future. 

El was a girl who lived with friendship and love. She had a happy life in Hawkins, Indiana. She had everything she could wish for. 

She would always be Eleven. Eleven was who she was for so long, it was a part of her. But El was also a part of her, a different part. A part that represented all the happiness she gained along with the name. 

Being El was a fresh start. It was her chance to start a life without pain and suffering. It was opportunity. 

Eleven would always be there for her, but El was the name that started her new life. The name that led to discovering the world and all its joys. 

El loved her name. She went from Eleven to El and with just a few lost letters she also lost so much pain. 

And that was something she was glad to let go of. 

 

Hopper 

El had spent a year in the Upside Down completely alone. It wasn't the same as the lab, because after her week in Hawkins she had learned what the world really had to offer. 

She had survived twelve years without companionship, but now that she knew what it was, another year was impossible. 

It was the hardest year of her life, but she got through it. She returned to Hawkins. She reunited with everyone she cared about. 

And as happy as she was, she really didn't have a place to go. 

This was around the time Joyce explained the story of Jane Ives. El realized all her friends had parents and families, she didn't have that. 

And then the person no one expected to took her in. 

Chief Hopper didn't seem like he would be a great father. For years he spent most of his nights drinking and seducing women. But everyone remembered who he was when he had Sarah, and everyone knew the lengths he would go to to protect his daughter. 

So when he volunteered to take El in, it was a surprise, but they all knew it was the best option. 

Things were tense at first. Hopper was an intimidating man, and El didn't have great experience with big, strong, scary men. 

But he was different from the ones in the lab. He was tough, of course, but he was kind and fatherly and he took care of El like no one else. 

El thought back to her real father, no one seemed to know who he was. Terry Ives never told anyone, and he probably thought she was insane just like everyone else who knew her. 

El also thought of her “papa.” He was a bad man. He raised her to think he was her father, but he was not fatherly. He had hurt her time after time and never treated her as his daughter. She wasn't his daughter, she was his experiment. And he wasn't her papa, he was her master. 

Hopper was the first real father to El. And when the time came for him to officially adopt her after staying with him for so long, it became time to choose a name. 

From that point on, she was officially El Hopper. It was her first real full name. 

Some people called it a last name, others said it was a family name. She liked the second one better. 

The chief was her first real family. He was her guardian and protector and most of all, her parent. 

Being named Hopper was the first step to showing she really had a family. And family takes care of each other and they never leave. Becoming Hopper was something permanent, because even though the name wouldn't last forever, Hopper would always be her family. 

 

Wheeler 

This was her final and favorite name. Years of loving the first person to show her kindness and she made the commitment to be with him forever. 

When Mike proposed it was a no-brainer for El. She loved him more than anyone else, he had been with her for so much and she never wanted to lose him. 

So she married the boy who pulled her out of the rain. She took his name and never looked back. 

She knew she didn't have to, there was Nancy, who even after marrying she insisted on keeping her maiden name. But El couldn't think of a name she’d rather have. 

She loved being El Hopper, but she loved being El Wheeler as well. Mike was the person who made her happiest, who supported her and taught her what love was. 

Making the commitment to become El Wheeler was more than just a commitment to Mike. It was a reminder that the same boy who gave her her first name then became her rock in the world. She fell in love with him and now he was giving her her last name as well. 

She would never get over being Wheeler. Even years after getting married she still felt the same giddiness when she used her full name. Someone would ask her name and she felt the rush of confidence and the beat of her heart with the answer “El Wheeler.”

Her name was no longer solely who she was. It was her story. It was the name she received when she was twelve years old that first taught her that she was more than a number. She was a human being who deserved love. It was secondly a reminder that she had that love. 

She fell in love with someone who taught her who she was outside of an experiment. Names were important. For her they symbolized so much. This new addition to her name told the entire world that she had love in her life. It showed her she had love in her life, and nothing could make her happier. 

Names were important to El. She had so many of them, each showing a different part of her life, a different part of who she was. With every new name a part of her changed, and she was proud of every single name she beared.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos/comments if you liked!


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